November 26, 2008

Writing articles is an essential part of article marketing, and by writing and submitting articles to article directories, you can make money by driving targeted audience to your website or blog. There are things you can learn that will enable you to make the best use of article writing to achieve that, much of it in the way that you design your resource.

More on that later: first I want to explain what article marketing is, and how it can be used to promote your web pages, blogs, Squidoo lens, MySpace page and any other online platform that people use to advertise their products and services.

If you know how to get traffic to a website or other online platform, you are a large part of the way to towards making a success of internet marketing. Article marketing is a very large part of this, and if you combine article submission with good search engine optimization (SEO)techniques, then you should not find it difficult to make money online.

Without traffic to your website you cannot succeed, and it is obvious from Google’s attitude to articles published on articles directories, that they do not pursue duplicate content as vigorously as they could. In fact, writing articles is one of the most Google-friendly promotional techniques you can use at the moment. Links back to your site given a very good PageRank score when they come from article directories.

Let’s break down a typical online business into its component parts. Various businesses are based upon different models, but they all have several components in common.

1. A Product.

The product might be your own or an affiliate product. It doesn’t matter. It might be a physical product that has to be replaced when sold, or electronically deliverable such as software or an ebook. While the latter is easier to deliver than a physical product, again its doesn’t matter since it has still to be promoted and you still need customers.

You might be offering a service as opposed to a product, such as a writing service as I provide, or SEO advice, which I also provide. Again, however, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you have something to offer that others are prepared to pay money to get.

2. A Platform for Promotion

This might be a website (yours or somebody else’s), a blog or simply an online advert. For best results you should use either a website or a blog. The website could be a traditional website, with several pages, a Squidoo lens or a social networking site such as Facebook or YouTube that you are using to promote your product.

3. Advertising and Traffic

Traffic is your life-blood, and advertising is essential in getting it flowing into your website. There are many methods of advertising online. Article marketing is the one I prefer best, and article submission is by far the best way to use them. By submitting articles to article directories and ezines you are not only exposing your product to a very wide audience, but to one that is interested in what you have to offer. Were they not, then they would not read your article.

Article Directories

Used properly, article directories can be the source of a massive amount of traffic to your site. Once you get your readers there, you have to use them properly and persuade them that your product can solve their problems. For that, you have to write well and persuasively. I am not one of those people that propose that spelling and grammar are immaterial as long as the message is clear. Unfortunately, it is a fact that if people are sloppy with their written English, they are also frequently sloppy with their products.

This is not cast in stone, since some people find writing articles difficult, particularly if they are writing in a language foreign to them. However, in these cases they would be well advised to use the services of an article ghost writer for their more critical material, particularly that which is intended for submission on the more widely read directories.

To read the continuation of this article, check out Pete’s site Article Services where you will not only find how to use article directories, how Google looks upon them, and why duplicate content is not a significant issue, but also get some free gifts.